Search

San Francisco Does Sunday Streets

For two glorious Sundays, San Francisco closed streets along a stretch of its waterfront to cars – and opened them to humanity. A second "Sunday Streets San Francisco" event on September 14th reprised an August 31st street party, both of which saw thousands of people come out to run, skate, cycle, dance, or stroll their way through a cityscape transformed. Organizers styled the event of Bogota's
Ciclovia, as San Francisco became the latest U.S. city to participate in a growing movement to liberate urban space from automobiles.

Wade Crowfoot:
[00:12] So we are out here celebrating Sunday Streets, our second Sunday
Streets in San Francisco, four and a half miles of fun, connecting two
neighbourhoods that have never been connected before, our Bayview District
in the southeast part of the city with Chinatown in the northeast part
of the city, all along the city’s waterfront. Four and a half
miles of free activities for people from very old to very young.

[music]

Cheryl Brinkman:
[00:44] When you go out on the route, when there’s no cars and there
are just people, people are friendlier, people are less stressed out,
you don’t have that sound of a car behind you or car passing you too
closely.

Speaker: [00:58]
I’m having the most fun as I can. I’m having great fun and
when I have fun I’m the happiest boy in the world, yay.

Cheryl Brinkman:
[01:10] So it just… it feels different. It uses the streets.
It brings people to places where they just don’t go.

Josephine Ma:
[01:16] Sunday Street is sponsoring by the Mayor’s Office to promote
health and everyone can enjoy dancing and all kinds of gongfu, and biking,
walking, singing, everything.

[music]

Andy Thornley:
[01:57] This is becoming a big thing in American cities from coast to
coast. Of course the real inspiration is Bogota, Columbia, and
the Ciclovia that’s been such a huge success there. But we’ve
been certainly very much inspired by Portland’s play and New York
City and their Summer Streets. A lot of other American cities
are starting to do this The giant stadium actually has been opened
up to the public, you can go inside and run the bases like you were
Barry Bonds.

Speaker: [02:24]
And they’re coming down the line, and it’s…

Andy Thornley:
[02:30] You can get in and see what the stadium looks like, if it doesn’t
have people in it, or except for you. I think that’s a lot of what
we’re seeing on Sunday Streets is exposing people to parts of town
that they never see.

[music]

David Miles: [02:56]
That is the signature move of the godfather skating.

[music]

David Miles: [03:05]
One of the missions of Organisation is to provide recreational asphalt.
That’s what we call asphalt when there’s no cars on it, it becomes
a recreational resource for everybody to use. And so what we’re
trying to do…

Very nicely done! I just wish I could have been there to run the bases of the stadium and I am not even a baseball fan. Looked like alot of fun.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/CBrinkman CBrinkman

Thank you Clarance and John for a great Streetfilm. Sunday Streets SF was very fun and we hope to do it again in the spring if not earlier. It was a good opportunity to show people what our city could look like with less car traffic.

Boingo

Wow! That was great! I want to try skate soccer...

Jackie

I was at Sunday Streets 2 weeks ago and thought it was great. I loved being able to ride in a car free zone, enjoyed getting off my bike and participating in some of the many activities offered. Great job by all the people involved.

http://www.walkroll.com Lois Moss

Nice job San Francisco! It looked like the weather gods were smiling and it was a great day. There were alot of new and creative activities that I haven't seen before. Next year there should be an explosion of Ciclovia-type events all across the US!

Copyright Notice

No Streetfilms may be re-purposed or used in other works without prior permission. However, you are free to embed, share, make copies and distribute full length Streetfilms without contacting us. This includes broadcasting to the public or at in presentations without any alterations.

You may download FREE medium-resolution copies directly off of Vimeo. Just click thru to Vimeo and you will find a DOWNLOAD button. These files are high-quality enough to use in group settings, classrooms or for presentations.